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“What’s going on?” I asked.
“She’s part of this, son,” his father explained. “Whether you like it or not, we need her.”
“Leave her out of this!” he yelled. My eyes began to adjust. I could make out an older woman near the fire, along with Alek and his father.
Something wasn’t right. Every ounce of my body knew this was wrong.
“It’s a full moon,” I explained. If Alek’s father had dragged me down here, it only meant one thing. He wasn’t going to wait for me to heal. He wasn’t going to let Alek talk our way out of this. He wanted me to open the veil. And he wanted me to do it right now. “You’re dropping the veil.”
“She’s smarter than you let on, son,” his father said.
“My mother will come,” I insisted. “She’s the protector of the veil. She’ll know if anything even begins to happen.”
“Oh, I count on it,” his father said. “But what you don’t know, Lyra, is that today is a very special day for us. For your mother, too. You see, on this day, every hundred years, the moon is not simply full. The moon is in an eclipse. It has a weakening effect on magic everywhere, which to most people would appear to be a bad thing.”
My hands began to shake.
“But it’s not a bad thing for us, Lyra. Do you want to know why?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“When your mother, the Goddess of Light, comes for you, she will not be able to stop us. She will not be able to fight us with her power. She won’t even be able to whisk you away into thin air like she’s done before. No, she’ll show up here only to realize she is stuck. Without her magic. With no defenses. This will allow for us to drop the veil without her interruption, and with the witch’s help here, there’s nothing she can do to stop it.”
That couldn’t be true. It was impossible for a goddess to lose her magic. It was only a myth. They had to be wrong. A small part of me hoped they were right, though. To see my mother powerless… I had wished for that more times than I could count.
“This,” Alek's father continued, “is Narcissa. A witch who has worked with us for decades. She’s prepared to help lower the veil, and she’s been studying the ritual for decades. All we need from you,”—he stepped closer—“is a vial of your blood.”
I backed away as far as I could, until my back was pressed against the wall behind me. “No,” I said. “You can’t drop the veil. It’s too dangerous.”
“We aren’t dropping it for long,” the older woman, Narcissa, explained softly. “Just long enough to get back what belongs here. Marcus has everything under control.”
My eyes found Alek’s in the darkness. “You can’t bring him back,” I said. “You cannot pull a dead soul from the veil. That’s not how it works!”
“Thatishow it works,” Alek’s father—Marcus—held a hand out to stop Alek from walking over to me. “And you’ll help us do it. You don’t have much of a choice, girl.”
“Why can’t you accept that your son is gone?” I pleaded. “Wrath is dead. He’s passed onto the veil. You can’t bring him back!” I couldn’t hide the desperation from my voice. Why didn’t they understand? Why couldn’t they just let go?
“He is my son!” Alek’s father yelled, rattling the walls around us. “He did not deserve to die. I needed him here, and I still do. I’ll get him back if it’s the last thing I do on this planet.”
The hair on my neck stood up. “Lyra,” Alek pleaded. “Please.” I couldn't tell what he wanted from me. He had been so adamant on protecting me, on not using me for this. But it seemed like he didn’t have much of a choice, either.
See, Alek and I were similar in that way. Puppets. It was our parents controlling the strings.
A single tear fell down my cheek. “I can’t do it, Alek,” I said. “It will cause too much damage. The veil hasn’t been opened in—”
“I don’t care what the consequences are,” Alek’s father barked. “I don’t care if the entire fucking world falls apart because of this. You’ll do it. You’ll do it because you don’t have a fucking choice.”
Another tear fell. The hope that had been building inside of me over the last few weeks was beginning to dissipate, along with any feelings I had of getting past this. Of getting away from this life.
I was already shaking my head. “I can’t,” I breathed. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
“Narcissa, begin the ritual. Now.” Narcissa nodded and knelt on a small altar before the fire in the center of the room. She started to chant quietly, growing louder and louder with each foreign word.
“What is she doing?” I asked.
“Father, stop this!” Alek yelled. “You cannot force Lyra to bring Wrath back!”
“Maybe not,” Marcus argued. “But she’ll bring you back.”
